Desert Upbringing
by TheOneAndOnlySlayer
Summary: Rey may have warmed up to Finn, but that doesn't mean she has to play nice with the other Resistance members. Growing up on a merciless planet like Jakku taught her that, ingraining in her that things like kindness had no place in her upbringing.
1. Play Nice

Desert Upbringing

By TheOneAndOnlySlayer

Rey may have warmed up to Finn, but that doesn't mean she has to play nice with the other Resistance members. Growing up on a merciless planet like Jakku taught her that, ingraining in her that kindness had no place in her upbringing.

Chapter 1. Welcome to the Resistance

"I can't imagine living in a sandbox like Jakku," says Poe kindly. He was definitely trying to make conversation as the two of them sat at opposite ends of the medical room, Finn's resting form swathed in white between them.

Rey is trying to look busy flicking dirt from her fingernails. Her fingers ache from the strange cold, not like Jakku's cold after the suns set because this kind of cold won't go away.

"No you can't," she replies under her breath. It seems wrong talking all normal-like when their friend is unconscious. The sterile room feels like a tomb and Rey is so damn _cold_.

Perhaps she could summon the Force and try to remember the warmth from Jakku. Strange how she craves that hellhole all of a sudden.

She's not used to sharing things. In fact, she really can't remember sharing anything on Jakku, with anyone. There may have been a time when she scrubbed scrap metal next to an old woman before and offered some of her water. But some other scavenger had knelt next to her and muttered "You're gonna die faster in this sandhole if you pity every wrinkled thing that comes your way."

Rey had hoped to be alone with Finn until this hotshot strode in and hopped into a chair like it was his all along. He had thankfully said little, respecting her silence, but the itch in her head (the Force?) suggested he needed the opposite.

Rey hadn't had any friends on Jakku. She needed them now. With Finn hurt this badly…

 _Poe's just trying to be nice_ , she realizes. He's annoyingly good-looking, like some poster boy. It annoys Rey to some unexpected level. He smiles a lot and he's got very white teeth.

Rey doesn't like him because she doesn't trust him. He's so damn friendly. What does he want?

"My mom used to live on Tatooine, you know." The pilot actually leans his chair back on its hind legs, like they're in school. "She wasn't from there, originally, but she lived there for a time."

Rey scoffs. "Change of scenery?"

Poe actually chortles. Maybe he senses she's uncomfortable and is trying to appear more harmless. "You could say that. She was a doctor. She quit her first job at some well-to-do hospital and joined some merry band of physicians to help the helpless. It was part of a travelling clinic where they gave immune-boosters to kids and…" Poe trails off. "Stuff like that."

Rey keeps her eyes trained on Finn's ear. Poe sits a little to the left of her gaze. "Did they get in trouble with the Hutts?"

Poe shrugs. "You mean the big worm-thingies?"

That makes Rey shake her head and laugh just a little bit. "The big worm-thingies. You blummin bantha." _What an idiot he is_ , she thought.

Poe sits up straighter. "What?"

"Nothing. Just, it's ever so kind of you to call those slimy murderous gangsters _worms_. Like they're harmless."

"I never said they were harmless," argues Poe lightheartedly. "Just that they – "

"Those bastards would have raped your poor mother and fed her to dogs." The comment leaves Rey's mouth before she realizes how harsh it sounds. How crass and – she pauses to understand this, she's never thought twice about another's feelings before – hurtful.

Finn's ear suddenly calls to her attention. She studies the swirls of cartilage and the stubborn scrape of hair below that's just creeping below, like a shadow. Unintentionally she conjures an image of Finn and his Stormtrooper comrades shaving before bedtime.

"Sorry. Just – " and here Rey forces herself to look at Poe, whose eyebrows are risen, like he's more surprised than offended. "I'm not a complete beast, it's just politeness never got me anywhere."

Poe smirks. "Welcome to the Resistance, sweetheart."

Rey frowns and cocks her head at him, _slowly_. Sweetheart?

He's stupid enough to flash all of his white teeth.

Rey's been quick to hit anyone who teased her on Jakku. She was small (once, not so much anymore) and female (though she never declared _that_ as a weakness), which instantly dragged other scavengers' and overseers' attention. They only acted a little weary of her once she started carrying that big stick of hers, and demonstrated her ability to use it on anyone's skull.

It wasn't fair she doesn't have it on her now.

So she settles with a verbal warning. "I don't like you."

To her displeasure he laughs; like she's joking with him.

"And you're adorable," he answers, getting up. Rey swallows a strange sense of disappointment as he heads for the door.

"The boys and I are playing some cards later tonight, after dinner," he says. "Things are only gonna get crazy by tomorrow once we start packing."

Rey turns at him in surprise. "We're leaving this base?"

"Only way to keep the First Order out of our way," he replies as he leans on the door. "They're pretty crippled now, so there's no rush, otherwise we'd have left by now. Am I gonna see that heinous temper of yours later tonight?"

Finn and BB-8 told her that this guy had been taken prisoner by – the First Order. Kylo Ren. And interrogated… She would have loved to see him test that murderous Sith boy's patience with his wise mouth.

Rey gives him a cool grin. "We'll see if I'm up to it. I've just kicked a Sith Lord's arse so I may have better things to do."

The pilot actually doubles with laughter. "Oh, my Gods. Marry me and have my children," he says as he walks away.

Rey bites her tongue at the flush running up her neck and face. She stares back at Finn. _This is all your fault_ , she thinks.


	2. Waste Not

Desert Upbringing by TheOneAndOnlySlayer

Chapter 2 Waste Not

There's food everywhere.

It makes Rey nearly keel over at all the smells. They pull at her senses like mothdust smoke, that powerful opiate she's seen people use to stave off hunger pains. Oh, stars, it's too much.

She's standing at the entrance of a massive room, the mess hall. The General, Leia Organa, is at her side. After she debriefed Rey on Starkiller, and everything else, Leia had taken Rey's hand.

"You look like you haven't eaten in days, kiddo," she said with kind eyes. Rey was ready to bury her face in the General's neck and cry like a baby. "Come with me."

Eating sounded like a great idea, considering she hadn't filled her stomach since Takodana. And they had starved her on Starkiller in hopes that she would cave in and provide information.

But hunger was a weary friend to Rey. It always hung over her shoulder, tempered but still on a low hum like a ghost. Long ago, within her first backbreaking year on Jakku, hunger had hung over her like death. The sudden switch to adapt and survive was when she no longer saw vomiting as a natural reaction to sickness, but a waste of fluid that needed to stay in her body. Water and food became gold and playing was a needless sacrifice of energy to provide for herself.

In these freer worlds, her routine of limitations still clings to her. Her sense of self is quickly eroding in the midst of so much life, so much color and sounds. With no more direction like escaping the TIE fighters and a dark-haired Jedi killer, Rey is practically delirious.

Right now, in this horde of soldiers, pilots, mechanics, medics and officers, carrying and talking over plates of bread, meat, white stuff and green leaves and bright-colored glasses of juice, it screams at her to grab whatever she could, hide in some corner, and shovel it all down her throat quick.

Leia prods at her to join her in line. A man shouts over the hissing steam from the kitchen what she wants.

"You ever have heffstrum?" asks Leia.

Rey ignores the strangeness of the Leader of the Resistance, a former princess, mothering her.

"I've never seen any of this stuff in my life."

Leia nods and has the cook make the same dish as herself. They both find a place to sit. Rey ignores the stares, or the way some of them part in their leader's presence and salute her.

"So, your friend Finn," Leia starts. "He said you're from Jakku. Never been there myself, but I gather it's not kid-friendly."

Rey's been staring anxiously at her tray. Her mouth is dying to taste whatever the hell it is in front of her.

"Well, go ahead, don't wait for me," says Leia, gesturing hurriedly to the food.

Rey inhales, diving her fork into some gooey but salt-smelling substance. She realizes it's meat, actual meat. She can't remember ever having fresh meat before. Some trader had come through their village once with dried bantha jerky. Rey had even seen some native hunters shoot down some rodents and birds. She tried to do it once, with a blaster she stole from an overseer, but she was miserably unsuccessful.

It melts into her mouth like ore. Rey's stupefied at the flavor that she forgets her fork is still in between her teeth. She doesn't notice Leia's silent observation.

"There's sulfur springs in that, too, so don't take that flavor for granted," she remarks.

Rey groans. "I've never had fresh food before. I could die now."

Leia harrumphs, sounding like she had picked it up from her estranged husband. The comparison pricks at Rey's just a bit, but she is too busy deciding what to stuff her mouth with next.

Leia eyes her tray, too. "Try the mooja, it's great stuff."

Grinning, Rey picks up her spoon and shovels one, two scoops in. Burst of the sweetest flavor she has ever tasted erupt on her tongue.

"Blummin' fantastic," she mutters.

Leia laughs. "That tastes better here than when I used to have it growing up. My father had a sweet tooth and he always looked for different cooks who could make a better mooja."

Rey realized the General was referring to her childhood as a princess. She sat up a little straighter and wiped her mouth with her armband. That might have looked uncivilized, but Leia didn't comment on it.

"On Alderaan?" she asks.

"Yep," said Leia, in a brighter tone than usual.

The conversation becomes stunted for a split second. Rey had hears that the Starkiller had taken out…destroyed, _obliterated_ …five whole planets hours before its own destruction. Rey had heard of the first Death Star's power, years before her birth. Even in the graveyard of Star Destroyers and scattered remains of the old Empire, Rey couldn't understand how such a weapon could be measured into burning a breathing planet into ashes.

"It's better than the shit I've had. No offense," she adds.

"None taken. I probably made worse."

They eat in mutual silence together. Rey steals a couple glances here and there as the General's head is bent, chewing thoughtfully, wondering what could be on her mind. Her husband – estranged husband – died today. Yet Rey thought she acted more shaken up by it than the older woman. Then again, this woman was a General. A senator before, a princess and married to a reckless criminal. She wasn't some dainty thing and was probably trained to hide her emotions well.

Rey suddenly became more in awe of General Organa than before. This woman was probably tougher than Solo. The careless smuggler probably had his hands full taming this independent woman.

She smiled at the thought, then hastily swallowed whatever had been hanging in her mouth before it could drip out.

"You know, Luke Skywalker grew up in Tatooine," she said suddenly.

Rey blinked. "Everyone apparently knows someone who grew up there at one point," she replied as a recovery. She can't remember anything about the Jedi Master's origins. He had seemed to appear in general lore out of nowhere.

"What's so attractive about Tatooine?"

Leia shrugs. "He was raised by an aunt and uncle. Though he told me years later he learned they weren't related to him by blood. His father's mother had remarried and the son, Luke's uncle, was just a stepson. Still, they were family. They took pretty good care of him. They were moisture farmers just outside of Mos Eisley."

Rey isn't sure why Leia is telling her any of this until the older woman sips her drink. "The first time Luke and I celebrated after…well, our first adventure – the look on the poor guy's face, I mean - !" her eyes, previously heavy with grief and too much responsibility, brighten like whirring engine thrusters. "He had no idea where to start. Han was ready to time him and bet how much time it would take for Luke to finish eating everything on the table. And he did," she adds, making Rey spurt out her drink in laughter. "He swallowed everything up, talking the whole time, 'ooh, hey, what's this?' and then Han said, 'take it easy, kid, you're gonna toss it back up again.' It was so…oh, it was funny."

It is a mark of Rey's starvation for belonging that makes her appreciate the nostalgia in Leia's voice. She can imagine herself at this age, content despite all the harsh misgivings in her life to love a single moment like that. She will talk about Finn's innocent courage and Poe's annoyingly perfect wavy hair and zest for life.

At the mention of overeating, Rey has to admit that her own stomach began to tingle, but only in a very small amount of discomfort. She won't throw up, not in front of a general.

"Tattoine at least has a better organized slave trade than Jakku. There's just small villages and very few buildings." She hopes she sounds smart. Rey begins, shyly, opening up about her life on Jakku: her makeshift home in the AT-AT walker, how she got her speeder and discovered the half-buried Star Destroyer.

Obviously she doesn't talk about the pot of dried-out desert bleil flowers, or the doll she made for one of the few birthdays she celebrated. She ignores explaining how learning how to defend yourself, even if you only had your teeth and fingernails, came only after she had been attacked, ambushed and stolen from.

Leia rotates her cup distractedly. "You have any family back there?"

"Nope."

"Nothing to go back to," Leia says, as if she knows Rey's answer already.

Inside Rey's pack is the lightsaber, Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. "Just…here, I guess. If Finn's here…" she leaves that sentence to linger.

Leia is looking off to some distant idea forming in her head. She's quiet for a while, and Rey assumes the woman is carried away with either general plans or memories of Han.

"Rey, come to my quarters after dinner." She's suddenly gruff and direct. "We need to discuss some…things. In private."

Rey's spine straightens as Leia stands up. The woman straightens her jacket and gathers her tray.

"And stay away from any seafood if you can manage it. Go see a doctor and get a full examination. Tell them you may need some magna pills in case you eat something that doesn't settle with you. I'm sure you have a strong stomach," she adds at Rey's rising protest. "But you're not on a backwater planet anymore. You're exposed to thousands of foreign foods you may not have built an immunity too. Seriously, take it easy, all right?"

Rey's suddenly unable to catalogue all of these orders at once. "Yes, ma'am," she stutters out. She watches how, at once, Leia is flanked by her advisors and high-ranking officers. She realizes with pride that they were waiting for her to finish eating. With _her_.

 _Cripes, I wish she were my mum or something_


	3. Know Your Body

Chapter 3: Know Your Body

By TheOneAndOnlySlayer

As Leia suspected, Rey's ravenous appetite got ahead of her. Bending over a toilet and grasping her stomach in pain, she retches her lunch: the mooja, chunks of heffstrum and blue jello she didn't know the name of. It pours out of her and the stink makes her throat burn all over again.

 _Damn it_! She curses herself. She's so strung out she wants to lay there and die.

Unfortunately the nurse behind her won't let that happen. "Too many fresh proteins at once, kid. That dehydrated, freeze-dried diet you've had all your life will do that to you."

 _Bite me_. Rey hurls again and mourns the most delicious, luxurious meal – one of the whole three she was guaranteed to have every day – in her life.

She feels like a failure. The nurse discretely hands her a cup of water.

Rey accepts without a word, staring at the clear disposable cup. It's so thin and flexible. She's seen people here throw things away in disposal chutes. She has half a mind to dive into those chutes like she was back on the job and find some valuable scraps. It's what she's good at instead of waiting for a doctor to feel her up and ask unusual questions.

"When was your last honoma vax?"

"Are you allergic to bacta?"

"Do you have a family history of humanoid heart problems, nerve shock, digestive corrosion?"

Rey huffs and answers the best she can, even when the nurse shows her disappointment at her empty answers.

The sterile, biting smell of antiseptic may as well be a fume in here, too. It may as well have driven Rey to purging her stomach.

"The hell were you doing in a place like Jakku, anyway?" The nurse documenting her medical background is gruff and superior. It makes Rey want to irritate her.

"The weather," she says after a while.

The woman, a green-skinned, brown-striped alien rolls all four eyes and hisses her displeasure.

"This preserved foodstuff diet of yours is no good. Lots of chemicals, you know. If we weren't busy fighting a war and getting ourselves killed in the short run, I'd tell you to stick to fresh produce only. But – "

"Well, excuse me." Rey huffed. "I wasn't a beggar or anything, but it's not like you can farm sand – "

The nurse held up her hand. "Hey. I get it, I get it. Okay? Just count yourself lucky you were able to get off that rock. I'm just telling you, those foodstuff packs have been proven to give people tumors and corrode their organs. Which - !" she started as Rey opened her mouth. "Which can be prevented, now that I've told you. It's not a problem at your age, but it would have been at, say fifty standard years."

Rey wanted to see this reptilian woman stranded on a planet that could have sucked out all the moisture out of her porous skin. _Wench_.

"Look, just stick to unprocessed foods for now. Avoid dairy if you can – "

"What's dairy?"

"Milk. You know, anything that comes from an animal. Baby animals drink from their mothers when they're born and start to grow. You ever see a baby breastfeed before?"

Rey blinks. She can barely remember the last time she saw a baby of any kind…

Once, there was a herd of jeejos that scattered around her AT-AT home. She was sleeping at the time, and woke to the jarring, rumbling sound of their wide hooves against the metal. There was been something so familiar about the sound, something about dark, full clouds and water tumbling down until it blanketed everything.

A shepherd her height (at ten years old, she suspected) and six times her age judging by the humanoid wrinkles bent his head and gesticulated wildly in hurried apologies. Rey had to beat the jeejos off her shelter.

Rey stopped at the sight of one jeejo that looked fatter than the others, but actually had a smaller one under its belly. She cocked her head, her staff lowering. She was puzzled at the action of the smaller animal. Its mouth was wrapped around a small bud from the animal's abdomen.

The rickety old shepherd clamored on the AT-AT with the help of his own stick and scooped the suckling animal from the larger one.

In Anatokka, the nomads' language, she tried to ask what it was doing. The shepherd brushed at the larger animal's swelling stomach and said "mother," "baby eat," "drink" and "strong." Then, to Rey's mild surprise, the little wrinkly humanoid pointed to Rey's chest and imitated a hefty weight about his front, like –

"Oh, nesh-pudda!" Rey remembered cursing the small rude man, and poked at his legs to leave her home. She had been passing off as flat-chested with her burly clothes for a while, but hated drawing such undesirable attention to herself, especially from a gap-toothed lecher like him.

She had thought that night, long after the shepherd and the mother jeejo had gone, that she had never been so puzzled at her anatomy before. She was skinny and always would be. She kept her hair moderately short, and the skin near her fingernails were often scarred after biting at them to stave off hunger pains. She didn't have anyone to be pretty for, not even a mirror.

She had no idea how badly she would be in need of a mother than when she realized she would inherently turn into a woman, no matter how alone she was in the home she was forced to make.

A few years later, Rey was dragging her newfound wares to Unkar Plutt's stand. She remembered feeling excited over a musical player she found in some locker inside the Star Destroyer. She had built herself the courage to go inside what looked like the soldiers' sparse living quarters. There were upended cots and personal items tumbled out of bins. She thought she could earn a pretty credit with some of the finer-made trinkets –

There was a squalling cry behind her that sounded small and weak. Nothing ever dared to sound so vulnerable before, not in this world of rough creatures. Rey turned and saw a bundled-up woman with orange skin, green orblike eyes and nostril slits on her forehead. Hiding under her breast was a crying youngling.

Rey was an adolescent, then. Puberty… had been bearable at the least. Her monthlies came at the most wretched time a year beforehand, just as she had returned from the graveyard on her speeder. She had learned to ignore the pains in her belly and to go easy while working. She couldn't afford any pain salves or dry-herb tea. Her figure had grown to the point where she fashioned a tight breastband under her clothes.

She would never be a mother on this planet. It would be a crime. Still, the sight of the most innocent thing, besides herself, once long ago….

The nurse interrupts her. "Are your monthlies regular?"

Shaken from her memories, Rey blinks. "What?"

"Your monthlies. Your cycle. Are you healthy? I've heard some malnourished women often skip periods."

"I'm not malnourished," Rey says tiredly. "I'm…fine down there."

"You sexually active?"

"Kriffin hells, no." She accidentally thinks of Poe and his overbearing kindness, of Finn. _Do you have a boyfriend?_

"Do you want to be? That's not an attempt to flirt, just – " the nurse ruffles through shelves for foreign packages and colored paper. "If it ever comes up, you want to make sure that –"

"I have no interest in that." Rey's tone is cold as space. "Ever."

"You're a woman," the nurse dismisses just as firmly. "You'll at some point consider changing your mind. I've got six back home, and believe me, if any nurse presented me with any of these fun little packages, I would have enjoyed motherhood more."

Rey settles and takes the small things – pills and abdominal patches, along with some brochure that she can't even read – discretely into her pack.

"Okay," says the nurse. She's got a tray next to her that is full of a row of clear tubes. At the end of each tube are thread-thin needles. "You ready for some shots?"


	4. Do As You're Told

Do As You're Told

By TheOneAndOnlySlayer

For dinner Rey was more selective on her food choice. It was very tempting to load her tray up again with as many sides, especially the dairy stuff. Her stomach was becoming traitorous and lustful over any cooked aroma, but she stuck to a simple soup and chewed on fresh bread.

The nurse's orders stuck to her: _Start with unprocessed forms of dairy first, like a glass of milk, then wait about eight hours. If your stomach adjusts, you can finally gain some weight with all that mooja the General says you're so fond of._

Now Rey is in front of Leia's main quarters. She shifts in a new change of clothes, a thin flight suit that feels a little too thick to her desert standards.

She presses the intercom. "Um, hello? It's Rey."

"Come in," the General's voice says after a moment.

The door hisses open and Rey steps inside. The spartan office doesn't suggest a former princess lives here. The most feminine thing is a long purple tapestry pinned against a wall for decoration.

Rey inspects it. On Jakku there are nomadic tribes, pilgrims that were once former slaves. Instead of adjusting to civilian life elsewhere, they had stuck to the desert planets on the Western Reaches or the Outer Rim, probably out of a sense of familiarity. They mostly shepherded whatever groups of animals were nearby, including banthas and jeejos. The women were mostly weavers and healers.

The village Rey used to live near was the most industrial she had seen these people adapt to, scavenging just like herself and selling spare parts and tools. They had made the massive brown tents, but there was one time she had seen something in such a wealthy color as this purple cloth.

She was sitting in front of her AT-AT shelter one day after work and watching the suns set. Very much like she had met BB-8, a sound alerted her. She peered over her shelter and saw a traveling caravan of three beasts. They were covered in blue blankets, bluer than an evening sky. There were a dozen men trilling some chant. It shook Rey, for it didn't sound frightening. Normally anyone traveling within sight of her home made her think of trespassers and raiders, but these people acted as if they were celebrating.

Rey could distinguish the women because they were covered in a deep burgundy red color, the color of fresh blood. They shook bells in their hands. Some even hopped gaily.

Atop one of the animals was a woman in the same garb, only the suns reflected a hundred dangling pieces of metal jewelry. Rey had seen these women take the most useless of metal pieces, from shrapnel to bolts, and fashion it to bracelets, medallions or pins for their turbans.

One of these parading villagers had seen her and waved, shouting something in their language. Rey remembered tightening her hand on her staff and sharpening her eyes at them. They had hollered at her, waving their arms and shaking their bells excitedly. Rey realized only later that they were inviting her to join them. But she was around nine at the time and terrified of everyone.

Aside from the way the suns set against the sky, Rey had never seen that much color before. Later she wished she had jumped off the AT-AT and followed them. It had to have been a bridal party of some kind. Maybe her life would have been kinder if she let those people take her in.

Her thoughts dissipate when she sees Leia come through. "Rey, come on in. I've got some tea."

Rey follows her into what tries to pass off as a lounge. There are cargo bins covered in rough blankets that are acting as furniture all over the base.

To her surprise Chewbacca is lying across one of them. His eyes are closed and a blanket is draped over him.

"Is he…?" Rey swallows a sense of guilt all of a sudden. Rey last saw him hours ago, just as the _Falcon_ landed and they rushed to carry Finn to a medic cart. She forgot about the Wookie as soon as she saw Leia's sullen face, and they both mourned together on Han's absence.

"He's…well, he's got me, really, so." Leia casts a pitiful look on her dead husband's first mate. "He's known Han for longer than I have. I had a nurse give him a sedative."

Rey blinks. The poor, miserable creature. Rey distantly remembers not wanting to look at the Wookie for fear of sobbing like a child. He barely held it together, but they both managed to navigate safely to the Resistance base.

Rey feels like such a fool. She should have…done something. She was shaken over the fight with Kylo Ren and his ferocious, haunted glare. Never mind the fact that she had survived without so much as a _scratch_. Finn's back was torn in two and her hands were shaking so much and she could barely comprehend Chewie's intercom orders to apply first aid.

Everyone has been careful around Leia's need to mourn. It is a testament to her resolve how she hasn't broken down in public yet, or retreated into these quarters. But Chewbacca…

"Is he gonna be okay?" Rey asks.

Leia looks grave. "No. Not for a while." She scoffs. "I had to hold him like a baby and practically carry him to the couch.

"Anyways," Leia continues in a forcibly brighter tone. "He's going to be your problem tomorrow."

Rey's brows quirk. "What?"

"I have a, uh…a mission for you," says Leia as she sits down.

 _Holy shit_. "Really?"

"Rey." Leia rubs a hand over her very tired face. "You…you've had a terrible first day on the job, I guess. Um. You… _weren't_ supposed to survive Kylo Ren's attack. That just…" her eyes focus on something on the table between them.

"Have you ever seen him fight before? With a lightsaber?" Rey's knowledge of the stories she heard about Skywalker, Solo and Leia are scattered with random triumphs, but she remembers Organa has a rare connection with the Force.

Right now it's proving difficult to be in this room. Chewie's grief, even in sleep, is as thick as his dog-hair smell. And Leia is as complicated as an unlabeled, flickering star chart that tries to remain steady.

Leia's answer is cryptic. "I've seen enough. What…what did Han tell you about him? Kylo Ren?"

Rey doesn't feel comfortable talking about the man who murdered her husband. She tries to shake off the sight of Kylo, standing serenely like a ghost on that bridge. She and Finn had watched, still as prey in hiding, but Rey had sensed a spark of danger that ignited as soon as that treacherous red blade burst from Han's – her friend's – body.

"He said that he was once a student of Luke Skywalker's – that he was…a Jedi." It seems wrong allowing that title. "And that…that he killed all those people, all those other students. Finn told me that."

Leia falls out of focus, but she nods. "I've seen him…before. He's very strong. Unforgivable. His conviction is stone-cold. I've never seen him fight someone – "

"It's nothing spectacular, believe me," Rey mutters to herself.

"No, I mean, I've never seen him fight someone who has survived," Leia corrects herself. "And he's fought and defeated other Knights of Ren."

A chill runs down Rey's spine. Defeated, or killed?

This man is a monster. She has to grip her hands together to stop them from shaking. The Force…Rey feels like the whole encounter in the snow was an out-of-body experience. She was a vessel that the power from the lightsaber channeled through, blocking Kylo's fierce attacks. Some of the anger she has used with her staff to fight off Jakku bandits poured through, too. It was like being electrocuted and floating at the same time.

She is not confident that she could go through it again. If that's what Leia called her in for…

"You don't want me to fight him again, do you?"

Leia sighs heavily. "No. You got lucky. The Force may run through you like a broken dam, but it's not something to just embrace in one day. You need training."

"How do you know so much about the Force?" Rey asks.

Leia laces her fingers together. "I'm Force-sensitive. I didn't know about it until the night before the Battle of Endor. I could have started training in some way, but by then, I wasn't interested. I didn't want to pick up a lightsaber. Ever. Luke told me…that it runs on our family."

Rey's eyes widen. Her mouth gapes like a cave. "W-what?"

Leia shrugs. "It wasn't exactly much of a secret. But Luke was always off on his own. He made a stronger connection to the Force, and our father. It…the war made us into different people. I couldn't accept…the truth about my real father for a long time. So, obviously I wasn't in a mood to be part of that life."

Rey's palms begin to sweat. Older people talk like this, even on a place like Jakku. Some stranger or homeless desert rat has sidled up to her and started ranting about their past life as a star Galactic pilot or something else. Rey hadn't the inclination to be polite to them, instead pretending they weren't there until they touched her arm to draw back her attention.

Leia may be a fascinating leader, but Rey really isn't comfortable hearing all these confessions.

"Why are you telling me this?" Rey asks in a timid voice.

"Because you have the making of a Jedi, Rey. The Force is inside you and it's protecting you. And we…we need you, but…" Leia becomes serious. "Kylo will come after you."

Rey gulps. She is afraid of this, but suspects it. He is fixated on her. She can't shake off how his mind echoed for her after she fled StarKiller Base.

 _You need a teacher! I could show you…._

Rey will not focus on the way his voice had softened, the way he became suddenly so human…

 _I could show you the ways of the Force._

"So, uhh.." Rey half-shudders, half-laughs. Maybe she _will_ throw up again. "What do you want me to do?"

"You need to go find my brother. Luke is the only one who can help you. Take Artoo-Deetoo and the star chart, plot a course and be ready to leave by tomorrow. I'm giving you the _Falcon_." She gestures her head in the direction of the sleeping Wookie. "Have Chewie go with you."

Rey's eyes widen like saucers. "You're – what? You're giving me your husband's ship?!"

Leia scoffs. "I'm not letting anyone else take it. And you need Chewie. I love him, but I can't take care of him."

Rey shakes her head. "You think Luke Skywalker will train me?"

"He will. He's got nothing better to do. He's the only Jedi Master worth training from."

Against her will Rey senses some begrudging irritation from Leia, but it isn't directed at herself.

Leia begins to remove some of the tea – Rey could have bit her tongue; there was _tea_?! – and bustles over to a small kitchen sink.

Feeling only partially dismissed, Rey reluctantly stands up. "Um. Right. I…are you sure -?"

"Rey, you've got your orders. You're not going back to Jakku, and you're not staying here. You need this." Leia doesn't turn around as she washes her cup. Rey pushes down the discomfort at being chastised.

After a moment she shuts off the tap, her brows furrowed. "Your friend's going to be all right. When you come back, you'll both be ready to fight again with us."

There is no sense protesting. Rey does want to stay, to fight with the Resistance again. Leaving sounds like abandoning them to another lonely existence, but the lightsaber in her pack reminds her: she has another path.

"All right. I guess I'm already packed, anyway," she jokes flatly.

Leia harrumphs. "I'll tell Chewie when he wakes up. Set up a flight plan and have it ready for me in the morning."

"Yes, ma'am." Rey pulls at the cuffs on her suit and moves for the door.

"And Rey."

Rey turns to her leader one last time. Finally, today, she sees a woman who is tired, who lets her duties fall away for a minute. "Bring my brother back here. Whatever he tells you, tell him his sister needs him home."

Rey understands this, more than anyone.


End file.
